Getting a client out of YellowPages ad help??

Nobody has experience with this?

If the book is closed your friend is SOL.

He can stop paying the bill, but YB will cancel the phone number linked to the ad. (That's why I've always had a different number for every YP ad in every book I've ever run.)

Patrick,

I would recommend selling him a mobile website linked to a QR Code. He can then place the QR Code in the Yellowpages ad (assuming he can still submit changes). It will be a pretty easy sell because it will allow him to turn his "static print ad into an interactive piece of media."

It sounds like you are running up against time, so I would move on this very quickly.

-Ben

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm meeting with him in a couple hours and I'll see what he wants to do. When you say they will cancel the phone number in the ad his physical business phone number isn't disconnected right? You're just talking about him not getting any calls from that ad?

Is there any cancellation notice in the contract you know of?

Patrick

I notice you say "cheap" website! $210/mo is not cheap in my opinion!
I have a friend of a friend that I did some Yellowbook site tweeking for. Here is how I did it with him......
He was told their web guy quit.

I said "well, your web guy quit, lets open the sucker up and take a look at what I can do for you" once inside I found many misspellings of words, even the town he services. Went in and made some changes, helped him claim his places listing and in 2 weeks he went form nowhere to the second listing for several of the top searches for his local niche. Obviously it had much to do with the misspelled town name. Since March, the hour I have spent with this guy has landed me several SEO gigs alone at a min charge of $250. This guy is better than a billboard as he tells everyone I am a local guy and do a better job than a huge company like Supermedia.!
Lemons to lemonaid my friend!

Contract is the key element here....he signed it, he is now legally obligated to it. The worse part of it is yellowbook will charge him for every little thing he wants done to the site....he has absolutely no control of the website...and worse yet is, technically, it's not his website. Yellowbook controls it 100%...they even place a yellowbook privacy statement on it even though over 80% of the terms of the privacy statement do not apply to his website or business....I've called them out on that many times.

Sadly, for those business owners who do not do their research first before signing contracts will just wind up wasting their money....

I suggest Ben's route of a mobile site & QR code for now....

~Ken

that is a tough one. I bet they have an iron-clad contract saying he can't get out without a penalty. Have him look into it - he may only have to pay 3 mths pmts and then he's out.